


True love isn't once, then dead:

by dollsome



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-21
Updated: 2012-10-21
Packaged: 2017-11-16 18:14:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/542384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollsome/pseuds/dollsome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>True love isn't once, then dead:<br/>the shriveling of your poor heart, all smudged up with<br/>the threat of your mother's fingerprints.<br/>True love isn't a ring, or a dead boy<br/>whose hands in your hair felt like fleeing, flying.<br/>True love isn't killing that girl, or hating her,<br/>and it certainly has nothing to do with apples.</p>
<p>Would you like to know what it is?</p>
            </blockquote>





	True love isn't once, then dead:

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where this came from -- I've been wanting to do some Swan Queen fic, but I guess instead my muse decided ... poem? Way to go, muse. Really super practical there.

True love isn't once, then dead:  
the shriveling of your poor heart, all smudged up with  
the threat of your mother's fingerprints.  
True love isn't a ring, or a dead boy  
whose hands in your hair felt like fleeing, flying.  
True love isn't killing that girl, or hating her,  
and it certainly has nothing to do with apples.

 

Would you like to know what it is?

 

It's hope, for starters: it's him,  
Diapers and nightmares and no easy way out,  
No husband, no spells to cheat with;  
Just you, him, and new life  
And the way he calls you _Mom_ first,  
for a handful of sweet years,  
before picking up your true name.

 

You never thought he would;  
there's one of your mistakes.  
He's a bright boy,  
You should have seen it coming,  
but forgot to look.  
That, too, is love.

 

Love is what he brings you,  
when she brings him back.  
It's opening the front door to watch your careful young world crumble,  
and that damned red jacket she wears so well.  
It's her I-hate-you smile and her bare hips.  
It's when she cuts down apples  
like a suitor throwing stones at your window.  
(She rocks back and forth under your fury  
like she's asking it to dance.  
Tilts her head just so;  
the curve of those lips  
sets slain clocks ticking.)

 

It's a flicker of gold in the wind, this love,  
dancing close,  
and that stupid hat with the pompom on top  
and how deep in your bones she writhes and twitches,

 

Making you rage.  
Waking you up.

 

And love is the way it feels to cross your ankles,  
prim,  
waiting,  
knowing she'll come find you here,  
perched on her desk,  
queen of her space.

 

She polishes stars  
and you keep that old ring between your fingers  
(the ghost of a kiss of a man  
you turned to dust)  
until she's the more important thing,  
and so you let it go.

 

True love is this:  
She touches you  
(Ten years ago, across statelines and lifetimes,  
ignoring enmity, daring curses, she touched you;  
she gave you a gift,  
gave you your heart  
from her careful young hands)  
and what was dead ignites  
in the simplest alchemy:  
your arm and her fingers.

 

You might call it magic,  
What the two of you have made.


End file.
